An accountant is a professional who performs accounting functions such as audits or financial statement analysis. Accountants can either be employed with an accounting firm or a large company with an internal accounting department, or they can set up an individual practice.

Duties of an Accountant

• Provides financial information to management by researching and analyzing accounting data; preparing reports.
• Documents financial transactions
• Prepare and examine financial records.
• Compute taxes owed and prepare tax returns, ensuring compliance with payment, reporting and other tax requirements.
• Prepares asset, liability, and capital account entries by compiling and analyzing account information.
• Establish tables of accounts, and assign entries to proper accounts.
• Survey operations to ascertain accounting needs and to recommend, develop, and maintain solutions to business and financial problems.
• Represent clients before taxing authorities and provide support during litigation involving financial issues.

Accountant Qualifications

• Four- year bachelor’s degree in accounting
• Master’s degree in accounting
• Professional certification like ICAN, ACCA, CIMA, etc

Skills

Detail-oriented, analytical and problem solving skills, ability to make well thought out decisions, excellent written and verbal communication skills, business acumen and interest, proficiency in IT.

Common Accountant Interview Questions

• A specific example of a challenge at work and how you dealt with it?
• Differentiate accounting from auditing
• Differentiate public and private accounting
• What are the qualities that make for a good accountant?
• How do you stay up to date on current accounting laws and regulations?
• Give me examples of the types of reports you generated in your last job.